Reflections on music

Music of transcendence: MONO in concert

Formed in 1999 in Tokyo, Mono developed into one of the most prominent names in post-rock music, releasing 9 much acclaimed albums over the last couple of decades, with their 10th studio album scheduled to be released early next year.

Post-rock, however, is too vague and restrictive a term to fully do justice to Mono’s unique soundscapes, which seem to spring from a different dimension, taking their audiences to hitherto unexplored worlds. As an enthusiastic NME reviewer once put it: “Screw ‘Music For The People’, this is music for the gods.”

Indeed, as testified my Mono’s recent live performance in Athens, the band’s mind-blowing blend of experimental, ambient, and classical elements offers an experience that goes beyond mere musical satisfaction. The band’s dedication, seriousness and intensity signify some sort of musical ritual or initiation rather than just a live show, thus encouraging the audience to partake in a truly uplifting communal experience. Music, thus, seems to become a means to something higher rather than an end in itself.

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Mono’s guitar-based, lengthy instrumental pieces -kind of miniature ambient symphonies with rich dynamics and extensive use of reverb, distortion and delay effects- slowly take you in until you are, slowly but surely, completely absorbed into the magnificent and otherworldly atmosphere they evoke.

In the end, Mono’s music is about evolving, going deeper, and reaching higher. In a word, it’s about transcendence. As Takaakira Goto, the band’s lead guitarist, has put it: “Music is communicating the incommunicable; that means a term like post-rock doesn’t mean much to us, as the music needs to transcend genre to be meaningful”.